Father Shoveller, kindly as he was, was a mere yeoman with nothing spiritual about him; the monks of Hyde were, the younger, gay comrades, only trying how loosely they could sit to their vows; the elder, churlish and avaricious; even the Warden of Elizabeth College was little more than a student. And in London, fresh phases had revealed themselves; the pomp, state, splendour and luxury of Archbishop Wolsey's house had been a shock to the lad's ideal of a bishop drawn from the saintly biographies he had studied at Beaulieu; and he had but to keep his ears open to hear endless scandals about the mass-priests, as they were called, since they were at this time very unpopular in London, and in many cases deservedly so. Everything that the boy had hitherto thought the way of holiness and salvation seemed invaded by evil and danger, and under the bondage of death, whose terrible dance continued to haunt him. "I saw it, I saw it," he said, "all over those halls at York House. I seemed to behold the grisly shape standing behind one and another, as they ate and laughed; and when the Archbishop and his priests and the King came in it seemed only to make the pageant complete! Only now and then could I recall those blessed words, `Ye are free indeed.' Did he say from the bondage of death?" "Yea," said Tibble, "into the glorious freedom of God's children." "Thou knowst it. Thou knowst it, Tibble. It seems to me that life is no life, but living death, without that freedom! And I _must_ hear of it, and know whether it is mine, yea, and Stephen's, and all whom I love. O Tibble, I would beg my bread rather than not have that freedom ever before mine eyes." "Hold it fast! hold it fast, dear sir," said Tibble, holding out his hands with tears in his eyes, and his face working in a manner that happily Ambrose could not see. "But how--how? The barefoot friar said that for an _Ave_ a day, our Blessed Lady will drag us back from purgatory. I saw her on the wall of her chapel at Winchester saving a robber knight from the sea, yea and a thief from the gallows; but that is not being free." "Fond inventions of pardon-mongers," muttered Tibble. "And is one not free when the priest hath assoilsied him?" added Ambrose. "If, and if--" said Tibble. "But none shall make me trow that shrift in words, without heart--sorrow for sin, and the Latin heard with no thought of Him that bore the guilt, can set the sinner free. 'Tis none other that the Dean sets forth, ay, and the book that I have here. I thank my God," he stood up and took off his cap reverently, "that He hath opened the eyes of another!"